Germany's health system is funded by a series of mandatory health insurance funds, all of which are reporting serious deficits as the system is overused.

Recently the German Teachers' Association recommended weighing children in class each day and reporting the seriously overweight to social services, who would have the power to remove them to clinics.

"The question must be admitted whether the immense costs that, for example, arise from excessive consumption of food, can be permanently paid out of the consolidated health system," said Marco Wanderwitz, the conservative MP for the state of Saxony.

"I think it's sensible that people who knowingly live unhealthily carry a responsibility for it in a financial respect," said Mr Wanderwitz, who is also head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats's group of young parliamentarians . . .

By the BMI formula I have always been overweight, even in the days when I worked with a jackhammer all day and could pick up an engine block and put it on the stand by myself. Some of us just aren't built like junkies.

11
posted on 07/22/2010 11:29:11 PM PDT
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)

Coming soon to the U.S. With this new finacial regulation just passed the government can now track every purchase you make. I guess if you make more than visit a week to Mcdonalds we will get hit with this fat tax. The government will say we can tell you what to eat because we provide your healthcare to. We are so screwed.

If you require 3x as much medical care because you chose to shove brownies and cakes down your throat, you should have to pay 3x as much. It is only fair. Forcing others who have made better choices to subsidize your medical care is socialism in the purest sense of the word.

To argue otherwise is to say that people should be able to do whatever the hell they want and then get their neighbors, friends, and family to pay for it. That is theft by way of taxation.

recommended weighing children in class each day and reporting the seriously overweight to social services, who would have the power to remove them to clinics.

Yawohl, Mien Fuhrer!

Undt while you are at, you should also serve three meals per day in der community kitchens, undt outlaw the sale, possession, growing, cooking, or production of food udder than in or for der community kitchens undt hopitals.

Special rehabilitation work camps could be built to sweat the excess avoirdupois off of offenders, while obtaining useful labor from them.

Remember: "Work sets you free!"

"I think it's sensible that people who knowingly live unhealthily carry a responsibility for it in a financial respect," said Mr Wanderwitz

The citizenry DID carry a financial responsibility for unhealthy behavior, BEFORE you "gave" them socialized medicine.

Now, rather than an incentive to live healthfully, they have an incentive to USE the system, "in order to get their money's worth" out of it.

The more you tax them for health care, the more they will (ab)use the health care system for every ache, pain, and sideways fart.

18
posted on 07/22/2010 11:36:30 PM PDT
by ApplegateRanch
(Made in America, by proud American citizens, in 1946.)

Yep. Hard work in my youth has served me well later--I have only broken a couple of fingers, despite some pretty harrowing experiences, and I'm a great-grandpa now.

The problem with the BMI calcualtion is that it is based on height and little else. If body fat was the metric, the measure would be more fair. Either way, I do not think physical characteristics should be taxed--the State does not own me, at least in theory, the Government works for me, at my consent (which is diminishing rapidly).

20
posted on 07/22/2010 11:38:53 PM PDT
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)

Instead, they need long bone density measurements, and a set of fasting nude weights, both on land and in a pool (after an over night colonoscopy-type purging) to calculate fairly true muscle to fat ratios.

Or, maybe they could just run everyone through airport body scanners, then use height, weight, and girth measurments....

25
posted on 07/22/2010 11:52:31 PM PDT
by ApplegateRanch
(Made in America, by proud American citizens, in 1946.)

perhaps the same will go for smokers, drinkers,sausage eaters,people who mountain climb, people who don't wear seat belts, people who don't wear condoms,those who eat meat,those who use butter, etc etc...

we'll work on a list but I'll bet every freeper does something to impinge their health....and I'M NOT PAYING FOR IT SO THERE....

do the fat people pay taxes?....maybe they would rather not pay for your children in school or the bus transportation system that does not come to their neighborhood....or maybe they would rather not pay for the police and fire to concentrate on the inner city .....all those services are paid by taxes whether you use them or not....

its a two way street....

what goes around comes around and this nazi tactic will bite a good many people in their arses before the tyrants are through....

“Very interesting but stupid”. I take you feel that people that jog should also pay additional taxes since in later life they end up having get their knee joints replaced. And what of the homosexual crowd who feel it is normal to have a mans penis thrust up the anal aperture? Now there is normal behavior. And while you are at it lets tax office workers since they sit on the asses all day and get hardly no activity unless they belong to a gym. Oh but the again there is that jogging tax. Let's tax black people too since they get sickle cell. Come on grow up.

Plain and simple one can not tax people for being over weight. Dumbest idea i have heard of in a very long time. And in closing lets tax shinny people too since the ones i see constantly have colds, running noses, and a variety of maladies that never seem to go away.

First of all, I didn't ask for the government to pay for my healthcare. I pay my own way, as do the majority of responsible adults in this country. This collectivist bullshit was shoved down my throat, against my wishes. Part of the reason why I oppose it has been brought to light by your comment. I don't want your moralizing about why you think I'm a defective human being and should pay accordingly.

So please, spare me your righteousness. There are many things that people choose to do which can possibly degrade their health or put them at risk of bodily harm. I'm sure if I scrutinized your lifestyle I could find at least a few that I could tut-tut. You're just falling in line with the latest trendy socialist busybody know-it-all jihad. Since the battle to demonize smokers is pretty much won, it's on to the next target.

It can be argued that fit people use more health care services in a lifetime because they live longer. If this scheme is implemented in some form, the greatest unintended consequence will be that health care costs will go up, not down

Why stop at fat people? We should tax young males because they are more likely to be involved in a traumatic accident because they do crazy stuff. Gang bangers should get taxed because of all their gunshot wounds.

Here's a good one...young females. They could get pregnant and that's not cheap. Old people...cuz they take too many damn pills that cost an arm and a leg.

Any high risk category, sky divers scuba divers, cave divers, rock climbers, military personnel...tax them for participating in dangerous activities that could cause expensive healthcare costs.

A couple years back, a Swedish PM called for a “man tax”, arguing that since men were overwhelming the source of domestic violence, they should pay to defray the government’s cost of dealing with the issue.

There’s really no limit to what you can propose when you cloak it in the precepts of “for the common good.”

...

I also think it would be funny to ask one of these tax proponents what they think of a tax on men and women who engage in promiscuity or other high-risk sexual activities? After all, the same basic logic applies in terms of increased health care costs to the public.

I’d estimate an average delay of 3.7 seconds before they started screaming about it not being any of the government’s business and/or calling me a Nazi. :p

(BTW, I’m obviously not serious about the idea of a tax on people who sleep around. I’m just sayin’ it would be funny to see the hypocritical leftist outrage that would result from such a proposal.)

Since certain “lifestyles” also increase health care costs, how about a tax on those choices? I don’t think that would be as popular with liberals and socialists as taxes on smokers and overweight people.

50
posted on 07/23/2010 3:18:26 AM PDT
by Pollster1
(Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)

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